Professor Robyn Whittaker

Robyn is a public health physician and an adjunct Professor at the National Institute for Health Innovation, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her research interests include mHealth - particularly developing and trialling healthy behaviour change and patient self-management support programmes to be delivered via mobile phones. She is currently Director of Evidence, Research and Clinical Trials for Health NZ | Te Whatu Ora - the national health service for New Zealand. She is chair of the Health NZ National AI & Algorithm Expert Advisory Group, where she developed a governance framework and checklist for the assessment and approval of AI tools to be used within the health services. She oversees a clinical AI Laboratory within the health service. She is also chair of a Whanau, Consumer and Clinician Digital Council for Health NZ, and a member of the National Telehealth Forum Leadership Group, the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor’s panel on AI, the Ministry of Health Steering Group on Precision Medicine and the Strategic Advisory Group for the School of Population Health.

Robyn has been a long-time consultant to the WHO on the ‘Be Healthy, Be Mobile’ global NCD mHealth programme, a member of the WHO Digital Health Technical Advisory Group and the Ethics & Governance of AI in Healthcare expert group.